How to Properly Promote Affiliate Products
October 26th, 2010 | 
Author: Sue said in another blog post comment: “In regards to affiliate marketing what would you say was your biggest impact on learning how to market products etc. Was it from Bring the Fresh or something different?” So I decided to answer that in a vlog and blog – so watch or read:
There are four things I realized that I do when I promote someone else’s product as an affiliate. Nobody taught me this. It’s just my style.
Buy a copy – unless there are special circumstances. I don’t want to feel guilt for being truthful. I’d never ASK someone for a review copy, have them give me a copy and then blast the product. But I would buy a copy and feel entitled to say my true thoughts. Another special circumstance is like what happened with Kelly Felix. I blasted him, he argued with me and comp’d me a copy to prove me wrong, but I knew going in that HE knew I was going to be brutal. If someone approaches ME asking me to go through their course, I’ll go through it but if it stinks, I just won’t promote it either way. I will be honest and tell them why, though.
Have the balls to be blunt and deal w/backlash. If you don’t have thick skin, skip the honest reviews. When I reviews One Week Marketing, I’m sure it hurt Jennifer’s feelings a bit. She blogged about it and her subscribers blasted me, etc. I understand their loyalty and so I wasn’t affected by it. Likewise, some people would have crapped themselves if a “guru” like Kelly Felix argued with them – but I didn’t. I stood my ground, and so did he. And that worked out well.
Show results – don’t lie for commission. Amounts aren’t the key factor here. With OWM I was promoting a small commission product – paid like $8-11 commission. But the course WORKED – that’s what mattered! I made two sales on that today in fact (not OWM – the bearded dragon product I set up using her course). Don’t give away the secrets of the course, but show that you earned something if you did. If you lie about the amount, then you’re a scammer. People just want to see if a system works, period.
Provide help for holes that you find. With OWM, I found the course layout all wrong for me. Part of what I talked about in my review was telling people which part of the course to read and do first. You could put out a specific supplement guide and give it away to people who buy through your link. If there’s anything missing, fill in the gaps so they then have no hesitation in buying the completed course (with your supplement).
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Posted in Career
Hi Tiff,
Sorry to hear that you are not feeling well – and I can’t get over how cute your dog is, making her little appearance, lol.
I think you have made your “brand” for the want of a better word, out of being honest and that counts for a lot in today’s internet environment. Too often people will say things in almost a formula way, just so they can sound convincing but when you ask them a question about something, they can’t answer because they don’t know anything about the products they are promoting except what is on the sales page.
Off topic, sorry, but have you any ideas for products like Market Samurai and Micro Niche Finder? I bought MNF the other day but the program doesn’t work because of changes to the Google algorithm and I am furious because I paid good money for it, and now can’t get anybody to tell me when it will be working. Do you have any suggestions?
Thank you and take it easy
Lisa
Unsure Lisa but I’ve been wanting to review MS for awhile.
Lisa,
I have Micro Niche Finder and they have sent me an e-mail saying they know about the problem and are working very hard to fix it. They said it may take two weeks though.
Thank you Rebecca and Tiffany- It was just a shame that the didn’t warn me about it before I spent the money on it. I might have to buy MS in the meantime anyway.
Have a great day
Lisa
Tiffany,
As always, excellent information. Thank you.
As far as Micro Niche Finder and Market Samurai, I have not tried Micro Niche Finder, but I own and use Market Samurai almost daily. It has been updated to use the new Google algorithm. It takes a while to get OCI to load, and some people have issues with it on older computers, but it works on my Vista machine, and my son uses it on a Windows 7 machine. Sorry, my understanding is that it is not available for Mac.
If you want to try before you buy, there is a free trial period. When that is up, you have to pay if you want to continue using all the features, but the Keyword tool in MS will work forever–even without purchase. Using MS with Bring the Fresh, I have been able to locate some key words that the Excel spreadsheet in BTF marks as “Jackpot!”
Sorry for hijacking the conversation. Just wanted to share.
Linda
Hey
Just a word of caution about MNF and MS. While there is opportunity for errors during product releases and upgrades, the biggest headache for both of these products is the data that Google is now presenting. They have changed their algorithms so much that the results are blowing away people who relied on them so much.
Think of it in this way. You love the morning paper that you read every day. Now that newspaper has a new editor and the editor has decided that they only consider verbs worth printing. How valuable is that paper to your now? That is a bit simplified, but the result is the same. You can only do so much with what you get fed. MS and MNF are going to have to find a new source for keyword data that is meaningful to online marketers who use keyword analysis to target markets.
Thanks for this it was a huge help. Guess I will have to sharpen my review skills. I just find it difficult knowing what product to pick to promote.
Hi Tiffany,
Thanks for your honest (as always)discussion on promoting affiliate products.
I’ve owned MS since it first came out two years ago. I found out about it through the 30 Day Challenge (now The Challenge).
I love it as it is constantly evolving. With the new changes at Google, I’ve found that I will get some irrelevant keywords, but they’re easy to filter out. The guys at MS listen to their customers and implement requests/changes where possible.
Can’t comment on MNF as I’ve never owned it.
Kathy
I have MNF and wish I’d bought MS instead for the additional features.
I find myself using the free version of WordStream as a keyword tool to find words to use in the new Google free KW tool.
I’ve refunded a lot of products at CB because they are not what they hype to be. Some are so antiquated they are using information from 4-5 years ago about Google KW tool.
Tiffany keep being honest.
I now go to the Warrior Forum and look for reports and reviews about new products before even considering a buy.
Thanks.
It has been frustrating to use MNF (or not being able to use) over the past few weeks.
I’m annoyed – but can’t be stopped from moving ahead. I do wish they would say on the sales letter that it’s not working right now. I refer “peeps” to this as one of my favorite tools.
Anyway… niche research is changing because of Google and the way they have changed the way they report stuff.
I can imagine that MS had (has) the same issues as MNF in some form or other.
While these tools make research “easier” they are not perfect.
Some of my best ideas (ones that actually make money) come from statistics in my own business.
If I see a blog is being found on Google for a specific set of related keywords – I go check out that niche and capitalize on the traffic.
No guessing if a tool is giving me the right info!
Just wanted to say thanks for the addition of text with the videos. I do all my RSS reading from my iPhone and iPad. This new format guarantees I’ll drop in and read consistently. You’re also going to benefit from increased SEO traffic as well. Win-win.